20 maggio 2014

Mentre dal vivo proseguono le presentazioni del suo più recente lavoro, On Behalf of Nature, due diversi album da poco in circolazione raccolgono composizioni di Meredith Monkdi epoca precedente, per voce e per pianoforte: Basket Rondo, del 2007, interpretato dal sestetto vocale The Western Wind Vocal Ensemble (su Labor Records), e Piano Songs, brani scritti tra il 1971 e il 2006 ora affidati alle mani di Ursula Oppens e Bruce Brubaker (su Ecm): "As a creator of new opera and music theater pieces, Meredith Monk has been hailed for her pioneering work with extended vocal technique and interdisciplinary performance; over a career of nearly 50 years, she has explored the voice as an instrument unto itself. Yet long before she began composing music for the voice, Monk wrote short piano studies as a music student inspired by the examples of Mompou, Satie and Bartók. She returned to composing for piano in the early ’70s, producing pieces that had their “own topography, texture and mood”, as she writes in the liner notes to Piano Songs. In her piano music, “directness, purity, asymmetry and, above all, transparency have always been important to me. The surface of the music is seemingly simple but the intricacy of detail and the combination of restraint and expressivity challenge the performer. Every gesture is exposed and clear."